I'm Chinese. A sentence puzzles me. The word "add" used in "passive voice"! Can I change it?
Here's the sentence: Make sure there is plenty of milk and sugar to add to the tea. We've known that the word add can be used in a collocation as " "add sth to sth". We should say:add milk and sugar to the tea. So a couple of my sutdents argued it disobeyed the grammar, a wrong sentence, and should be corrected as: Make sure there is plenty of milk and sugar TO BE added to the tea. Is the sentence just a printed error? Or English-speaking countries think both are OK?

Question

I'm Chinese. A sentence puzzles me. The word "add" used in "passive voice"! Can I change it?
Here's the sentence: Make sure there is plenty of milk and sugar to add to the tea.   We've known that the word add can be used in a  collocation as " "add sth to sth".    We should say:add milk and sugar to the tea.    So a couple of my sutdents argued it disobeyed the grammar,  a wrong sentence, and should be corrected as: Make sure there is plenty of milk and sugar TO BE added to the tea.   Is the sentence just a printed error? Or English-speaking countries think both are OK?

Answer

The sentence is correct as written, and it’s not passive. It’s short for “Make sure there is plenty of milk and sugar *for us* to add to the tea. You could use the passive construction suggested by your students if you wanted, but really, it’s much more natural to make *people* the subject rather than the milk. Just because the passive voice exists, doesn't mean we need to use it all the time.

Edit: autocorrect changed "written" to "eaten" for some odd reason.

Answer

In addition to what Phil said: 'to be added' suggests that it must be or will be added later. In reality, it's an option.

Answer

"to be added" is the proper English form.

لا تفوّت فرصة تعلّم لغة جديدة وأنت مرتاح في منزلك. تصفّح مجموعتنا المختارة من مدرّسي اللغات ذوي الخبرة وسجّل في درسك الأول الآن!